Court reopens way for deporting Demjanjuk

CLEVELAND - A federal appeals court opened the way again yesterday for the Justice Department to deport alleged Nazi death-camp guard John Demjanjuk to Germany to face 29,000 counts of accessory to murder.

The three-judge ruling from the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied a stay of deportation for Demjanjuk, 89, a retired autoworker living outside Cleveland.

His son, John Demjanjuk Jr., told the Associated Press by e-mail, "We are currently considering legal options including an appeal to the Supreme Court."

He also said a lawsuit had been filed in Berlin "to stop the acceptance of my father as a deportee." The issue is whether Germany can accept Demjanjuk without having filed a formal request for extradition.

An arrest warrant in Munich alleges that Demjanjuk was a camp guard in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. He says he was a prisoner of war.

His family says he is too old and sick to be sent to Germany, but the government says that he gets around for his age and that surveillance video proves that.

The appeals court said it believed the government would provide appropriate care for Demjanjuk while deporting him, including "an aircraft equipped as a medical air ambulance and attendance by medical personnel."

The U.S. government will continue to seek Demjanjuk's removal to Germany, Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said yesterday. She gave no information on when that might happen.

Immigration officials provided no indication on whether they would move to deport Demjanjuk promptly.

"He remains on an order of supervision with electronic monitoring supervised by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement," spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez told the AP in an e-mail.

The ruling was the latest in a series of developments in a case spanning decades.